Modernization is the product of the development of productive forces to a certain stage, a conspicuous symbol of the development and progress of human civilization, and a common goal that all countries in the world are diligently pursuing. In more than 70 years, the leaders of the Communist Party of China have completed the industrialization process that developed countries have gone through in the past two to three hundred years, created a Chinese-style modernization path, and created a new form of human civilization. Chinese modernization "solves many problems in the development of human society, abandons the old path of capital-centered modernization, polarized modernization, materialistic expansion, and foreign expansion and plunder, expands the way for developing countries to modernize, and provides a Chinese solution for mankind's exploration of a better social system." Chinese modernization has enriched and developed the theory of human modernization and provided an important methodological reference for the vast number of developing countries to move towards modernization.
Persist in proceeding from the country's national conditions and cultural heritage, and independently explore its own path to modernization. Chinese modernization not only has the common characteristics of the modernization of all countries, conforms to the universal law of modernization development, actively promotes industrialization, urbanization, informatization, and actively develops democracy and the rule of law, but also has China's own distinctive characteristics, always adheres to the socialist direction, always bases itself on its own historical heritage and unique national conditions, puts the development of the country and the nation on the basis of its own strength, adheres to national self-esteem and self-confidence, and unswervingly follows its own path. Chinese-style modernization is the product of the Communist Party of China's "integration of the basic tenets of Marxism with China's specific reality and with China's excellent traditional culture", and has profound theoretical, historical, and practical logic. General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out that what kind of governance system a country chooses is determined by the country's historical heritage, cultural traditions, and level of economic and social development, as well as by the people of the country. Today's national governance system is the result of long-term development, gradual improvement, and endogenous evolution on the basis of the mainland's historical inheritance, cultural traditions, and economic and social development. The successful practice of Chinese-style modernization has fully proved that governing a country and promoting a country's modernization is not only the path of the Western institutional model, but also that all countries can go out of their own way. In recent years, some developing countries have copied the political system and political party system of the West, but instead of bringing good news, it has led to political turmoil, economic stagnation, social division, ethnic conflicts, and frequent wars. Positive and negative practices have shown that the vast number of developing countries can only succeed if they truly proceed from the history, culture, social nature, and economic development level of their respective countries, independently choose their own path, and never copy the paths of other countries.
We should always uphold and strengthen the party's leadership and stimulate the enthusiasm and creativity of the broad masses of the people. Chinese-style modernization is socialist modernization under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. The leadership of the Communist Party of China is the most essential feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the greatest advantage of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. The party's leadership has decided that the fundamental nature of Chinese-style modernization can only be socialist modernization, to ensure the steady and far-reaching implementation of the goal of Chinese-style modernization, and to stimulate a strong impetus for Chinese-style modernization. The reason why Chinese-style modernization has been able to overcome all difficulties and obstacles and achieve achievements that have attracted worldwide attention is that, on the one hand, we have the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China, and on the other hand, we have adhered to the people-centered development philosophy, always safeguarded the fundamental interests of the broadest masses of the people, won the support of the broadest masses of the people, and stimulated the vitality of the broadest masses of the people in creativity and innovation. The party's insistence on taking the overall situation into account and coordinating all parties has given us the advantage of concentrating our efforts on major and difficult tasks. Developing countries are economically weak and technologically backward, and having a strong and powerful political party leadership should establish a system and mechanism that unites all forces that can be united, and avoid all kinds of political internal friction are the fundamental political guarantees for realizing modernization.
We should adhere to the unity of upholding integrity and innovation, always develop Marxism in the course of persistence, and constantly promote theoretical, institutional, and practical innovations. Integrity and innovation are important ideological methods for our party to govern the country in the new era. Only by keeping integrity can we not lose our way and not make subversive mistakes, and only by innovating can we grasp the times and lead the times. The exploration of Chinese-style modernization is a historical process of developing in the course of inheritance and innovating in the course of uprightness. Chinese modernization is built on the basis of economic and cultural backwardness, and it is also faced with the international situation of "one ball, two systems", which is different from Marx's vision of the future society, which determines that our socialist modernization construction cannot copy Marx's "book," but must integrate the basic tenets of Marxism with the greatest reality that China is in the primary stage of socialism, constantly promote the theoretical innovation of Marxism in China and the modernization of the times, and constantly promote the innovation of the socialist system and culture with Chinese characteristics. Practice innovation. On the basis of the great practice of reform and opening up, we have created, adhered to, defended and developed socialism with Chinese characteristics, and adhered to the Chinese-style modernization.
Adhere to the unity of efficiency and fairness, and correctly play the role of the government and the market. As socialist modernization, Chinese-style modernization should not only create higher efficiency than capitalism, but also more effectively safeguard social fairness, and better achieve the balance, promotion and unity of efficiency and fairness. The mechanism for realizing this is to integrate socialism with the market economy and correctly bring into play the role of the "two hands" of the government and the market. Combining socialism with the market economy is an important innovation of the Communist Party of China in theory and practice over traditional Marxism and a major transcendence of Western liberalism. China's socialist market economy is not a capitalist market economy and does not aim at privatization. Since the beginning of reform and opening up, although China's ownership structure has been adjusted, it has always adhered to the unwavering status of public ownership, brought into play the leading role of the state-owned economy, and insisted that state-owned enterprises are an important force in promoting national modernization and safeguarding the common interests of the people. China has always been committed to unswervingly consolidating and developing the public economy, as well as encouraging, supporting and guiding the development of the non-public economy. While giving full play to the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources, it also stresses the need to give better play to the role of the government, maintain macroeconomic stability, strengthen and optimize public services, ensure fair competition, strengthen market supervision, maintain market order, promote sustainable development, promote common prosperity, make up for market failures, and ensure that the broad masses of the people can fairly enjoy the fruits of modern development. As far as the vast number of developing countries are concerned, in order to achieve modernization, we must not engage in "single-handedness"; we must give full play to the decisive role of capital in the allocation of resources and actively utilize capital, and at the same time we must strengthen the government's planning guidance and supervision, standardize and curb capital, and prevent the barbaric growth of capital. It is necessary not only to make the public ownership system stronger, bigger, and better, and grasp the lifeline of the national economy, so as to safeguard the needs of the people's livelihood, strengthen macroeconomic regulation and control, and prevent a small number of oligopolies from monopolizing the economy and controlling the political power, but also actively encourage the development of the private economy and continuously enhance social vitality.
We should uphold the unity of independence and opening up to the outside world, so that modernization will have a solid internal foundation and will be able to make use of the outstanding achievements of human civilization. Modern Chinese history tells us that there can be no modernization without national independence. National independence is the prerequisite for realizing modernization, and modernization is the guarantee of national independence. Over the past 70 years, China has adhered to the strategic principle of independence and self-reliance, unswervingly built a strong national defense and an independent industrial system, resolutely opposed hegemonism, safeguarded the integrity and independence of national sovereignty, independently explored the path of Chinese-style modernization, independently developed core technologies and disruptive technologies, and took the important weapons of the country into its own hands. On the other hand, China has the courage to break the blockade and isolation, actively conform to the development trend of economic globalization, constantly improve the breadth, intensity, and level of opening up to the outside world, walk on the road of the development of human civilization, draw on the experience of the developed countries, and strengthen its own strength in international competition. Internal causes are the basis for the development of things, and external causes are the conditions for the development of things. As far as the vast number of developing countries are concerned, they must not only strive to become bigger and stronger in their own characteristic and advantageous industries, continuously enhance the endogenous driving force of economic development, and improve their technological level, but also conform to the trend of economic globalization and adhere to open development and win-win cooperation.
Adhere to the unity of long-term and short-term goals, and promote modernization in stages. The foundation of economic and cultural backwardness determines that Chinese-style modernization cannot be achieved in a hurry and overnight, but must continue to struggle. In terms of the way of promoting modernization, the Communist Party of China has always attached great importance to the unity of long-term and short-term goals, adhered to scientific planning, and gradually advanced, step by step. At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Comrade Mao Zedong put forward the "two-step" strategic plan, and through arduous efforts, we established an independent and relatively complete industrial system and national economic system in the 70 s of the 20 th century. After reform and opening up, based on the reality of the initial stage of socialism, Comrade Deng Xiaoping put forward a "three-step" strategic plan for moving from subsistence and clothing to moderate prosperity and then to the basic realization of modernization. In 1995, China's confidence was greatly boosted by the fact that China had achieved its goal of moderate prosperity in 2000, which was originally scheduled to be completed in 2000. In order to better accomplish the goal of basically realizing modernization, Comrade Jiang Zemin put forward the "two centenary" goals at the 15 th CPC National Congress in 1997 and formulated a "new three-step" strategic plan. In the new era, General Secretary Xi Jinping, based on the miracle of the mainland's rapid economic development and in line with the expectations of the people, further put forward the "two-step" strategic arrangement after completing the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way. Through this series of phased strategic deployments, the strategic goal of Chinese-style modernization has gradually become a reality. Like China, the vast number of developing countries have a relatively weak economic foundation, and they need to eliminate interference and anchor the long-term goal of modernization, and at the same time, they need to base themselves on reality, persevere, advance in stages, and achieve a leap forward in modernization through the accumulation of quantity.
Adhere to the unity of vitality and order. Vitality and order are the eternal themes of modern development, and they influence and promote each other. Vitality is the source of power for the development of modernization, and order is the prerequisite for the development of modernization and the consolidation of its achievements, and it is the guarantee for the vitality of modernization. It is necessary not only to maintain order in vitality, but also to stimulate vitality in order. Chinese modernization has not only fully stimulated the innovation and creativity of the whole society through reform and opening up, achieved the miracle of rapid economic development, actively promoted high-quality development, and vigorously maintained national security and social stability and order, ensuring that life is not chaotic and stable and far-reaching, and has achieved a miracle of long-term social stability. In the early days of reform and opening up, we put forward such important theses as "development is the last word," "reform and opening up is a key move to determine China's destiny," and "stability overrides everything." We persisted in combining the intensity of reform, the speed of development, and the degree of social acceptability, and correctly handled the relationship between reform, development, and stability, as well as the relationship between vitality and order. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core has, on the one hand, stimulated the vitality of modernization development by comprehensively deepening reform, and on the other hand, profoundly grasped the historical position of the mainland's development and the situation and tasks facing national security, put security issues in a very prominent position, put forward the theory of overall development and security, and called for security development to run through all fields and the whole process of national development, and to prevent and resolve various risks affecting the mainland's modernization process.
Adhere to the unity of the central work and the comprehensive advancement. The process of Chinese-style modernization is a process of advancing in stages and fields, and it is a process from unitary industrialization to comprehensive modernization. In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, more emphasis was placed on industrialization, and although the "four modernizations" goal was proposed, in the final analysis, the "four modernizations" still belonged to the level of material civilization, and the goal was relatively simple. However, this has its rationality, because poverty is not socialism, and the development of material civilization, especially the development of science and technology, is the basis for safeguarding national security and even the existence of the entire civilized society. After the reform and opening up, we have further emphasized the "two civilizations" to grasp at the same time. The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward the coordinated development of the "five civilizations". The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) clearly stated the need to build a modern socialist country in From single to comprehensive, this reflects the continuous expansion of the connotation and extension of our modernization, the deepening of our understanding, and the continuous improvement of the people's needs for a better life. However, from the beginning of reform and opening up to the present, we have continued to stress that we must unswervingly persist in taking economic construction as the central task, and this also reflects the dialectical unity of our adherence to the central work and the comprehensive advancement. As far as the vast number of developing countries are concerned, we must unswervingly persist in taking economic construction as the central task, constantly consolidate the material foundation for the development of modernization, and then comprehensively promote modernization on this basis.
In short, the success of Chinese-style modernization lies in the fact that we have correctly handled a series of major relationships, which contain profound dialectics, deepened and developed our understanding of the laws governing the Communist Party, socialist construction, and the development of human society, and provided an example and reference for the vast number of developing countries to achieve modernization. General Secretary Xi Jinping has made it clear that we will not "import" foreign models, nor will we "export" Chinese models, and will not ask other countries to "copy" China's practices. Due to the different national conditions, histories and cultures of different countries, Chinese modernization cannot directly provide ready-made solutions for the majority of developing countries, but it can provide useful methodological references.
(Author: Chen Zhigang, Institute of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)
Source: WeChat public account "Innovation Research", this article was originally published in the May 9, 2024 issue of China Social Science Daily
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